I have had to spend some time today soothing an author who has had her feathers severely ruffled by a review posted on one of our retailer’s sites.
The overall review itself wasn’t too bad, giving the story three stars (out of five) and praising some parts of it. However it’s the detailed criticisms appended to it that upset this author.
Firstly, the reviewer carped on about the length of the story being so short – that’s a little unfair given the retailer clearly shows the word count and also it is priced at the lowest end of the scale. As I said somewhat unfair but it’s not something you can win.
The thing that really upset the author was the accusation that the author was Homophobic. This accusation was based on one exchange of dialogue between the main character and her long time boyfriend, discussing another member of the team, who was homosexual, and discussing that person in disparaging terms. Now this section of dialogue was included, to demonstrate the basic immaturity of the lead character who still has some growing up to do. The story is also set about twenty years ago, when the kind of attitudes demonstrated by two lines of dialogue were really the norm among adolescents, even if they're not now. It helps to pin the story in time, and provided a slightly comical moment.
To go so far over the top on political correctness like this reviewer has is seriously out of order. The problem is the retailer doesn’t see the review as unfair, simply an honest expression of the reader’s view (which, I suppose it is) and won’t take it down.
Scratch future sales of this e-book on that retailer site.
That’s part of the problem with the review system, I’m all for empowering the reader, but surely there should be a mechanism for right of reply too?
I don’t know which author it is, but tell them BRAVO!! Now people will want to read the book to find out about the homophobic views. Not all bad reviews yield bad press. But I know it still hurts when someone dislikes your baby. Would be nice if readers would understand the views of the characters are the views of the characters and not the author.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with Ann. It's interesting too how often you can tell the particular issues of a culture by what everyone looks at first - now, and perfectly reasonably, people don't like homophobia and find that and other related attitudes, eg gender inequality, racism etc, disturbing. But nobody ever queries my characters when they commit murder, sexual assault or people trafficking or any of the other terrible things people in society can do!
ReplyDeleteAttitudes and the links between life and book content are all very odd ... I suppose we would rather, if we absolutely had to make a choice, someone was homophobic or a racist than an actual murderer, at least in real life. Though ideally we would wish for none of the above!
I think we have to give intelligent readers some credit. When I read a review like the one you're talking about, I consider the source.
ReplyDeleteThat you all for your supportive comments.
ReplyDeleteor even thank you... sorry, having issues with my fingers (note: I'm not blaming the keyboard! It gets it's own back if I do).
ReplyDelete